March 13, 2010

We should have made this cheese for our first hard cheese instead of the gouda we made last November. This was easy, if hugely time consuming. There's a lot of waiting that happens in cheese-making. Bring the milk to temperature, add something, wait, repeat. Cut curds, wait, repeat.

Curds and whey.

Drained and salted curds. We got 6 quarts and 3 pints of whey out of this. (Local people: want some?)

And this is where it's at right now, pressing at 10 lbs, more or less, for 12 hours. Technically, this means I need to get up at 4:30am and move the cheese to the next step (air drying); I wonder how much damage I'll do if I wait until a reasonable hour?